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The problems that teachers face are a mountain peaks high ranging from no money for supplies to the behavior of the students in the classroom.  A Chicago Public Schools teacher is telling her side of the story about her heated confrontation with a student in her classroom.

Joann Finley, a teacher at the Winnie Mandela Alternative School on Chicago’s South Side was doing her job as she’s done since sometime in the 90s and it is quite unfortunate that she has lost her job because she lost her cool.  The issue started after another teacher requested for her students to merge in Finley’s room due to the other teacher’s room was cold.  It would seem that this request was not a good idea because apparently the different group of students were not getting along being cooped up in the same classroom.

EarHustle411 does not advocate adults especially teachers to step out of their professional roles and berate a child however we also understand that they are human.  We are not entirely sure of what’s happening with the young people thinking that they can be rude, unruly and disrespectful to adults and think that it’s fine.  In this situation, Joann Finley had reported the unruly behavior to the administration and unfortunately nothing was done. So what happened next was simply a natural progression of the teacher’s frustration.  The teacher let loose on the student that would not behave himself and as sad as it is that the teacher is now out of a job, but at some point the educational system has to address the pink elephant in the room.  What is the teacher to do when he/she is there to teach but because of one or two classroom cuts-ups the educational process stops because they have to “deal” with the unruly behavior of the student.

The student who was not responding to nor ceasing his obnoxious behavior and continued to do so even after the school security came to the classroom.  While the video shown was of the teacher during her tirade against the student but no footage of the student’s actions prior to the teacher losing her cool.  Reports from Fox 32 stated that Ms. Finley expressed that she has had a chance to calm down and she feels awful and she wished she’d handle he situation differently and she’s known to be the teacher that does not tolerate unruly behavior in her classroom.  Now how she has handled a situation like this in the past we are not privy to but what we do know is that everyone has a breaking point. What degree of responsibility does the administration have to be held accountable to?

Although teachers are overworked and severely underpaid, this situation is just another sad case of that.  Terminating the teacher’s employment was a bit extreme, a few days without pay would have brought the teacher back to the reality that what she did was unprofessional and one can only wonder how this story could have been even more drastic has the unruly student gotten physical with the teacher.

EarHustle411 and the writing staff wants to pose this question; if you were in the teacher’s place, what would have done with this student? Share your thoughts with us.